Til the End
by shynerdylady
Summary: FemShep and Garrus, mixed timeline from ME1 through ME3. Shepard and Garrus are both logical and empathetic, but when it comes to their personal lives, things aren't as easily laid out. I hope I can do this romance justice because it's amazing.
1. Chapter 1

_So this is the first part/segment I've completed. I have quite a few more, but thought I'd put this up to see how peeps like it. I'll keep working on the other pieces and integrate them as I go along._

_This segment starts in ME2. I will try not to go all over the place crazy with timeline, but this was the first thing that came to mind that I had wanted to depict. I hope you guys enjoy this small beginning :)_

* * *

Emmalene's eyes widened with fear and shock as she watched Garrus get taken down by machine gun fire from the gunship. Everything seemed to go into slow motion as his body twisted and blue blood splattered across the floor and furniture in front of him. He thudded loud against the floor, more blood splattering near his face as his armor crumbled at the neck and chest. The echo of him hitting the ground rang in her ears as she froze in shock at the scene taking place before her. He didn't make to move after he'd hit the ground, and that's when the gunfire from the gunship snapped her back to reality.

She grit her teeth as she holstered her pistol and began massing dark energy between her palms. Her boots clanked loudly against the floor as she shouted and ran with a vengeance, flinging the warp blast at the hovering craft outside the balcony. The bright orange explosion sent out a shockwave strong enough to knock her back onto her side before crashing down to the ground below.

After a moment of refocusing her vision and hearing from the blast, she got to her knees and looked to see Garrus still lying face pressed into the ground.

"Garrus!" she stumbled to her feet and ran to his side. Falling to her knees in front of him, she placed a gentle but firm hand on his shoulder and leaned down close to his face, "Garrus can you hear me?" A few moments passed before his eyes shot open and he gasped and gurgled for air. He met her eyes as he coughed up blood onto her face and chest, trying to understand what was happening in his delirium.

"Mordin! I need you over here right now!" she wiped at the blue blood on her lips and cheek as she shouted at the salarian, leaning back down to Garrus' ear, "hang on Garrus. Stay with me!"

Zaeed hovered over her shoulder, a grim expression on his face. "He's not going to make it, Commander..."

"MORDIN!" she screamed once more to the doctor, fear and anxiety at the possibility of losing Garrus giving her voice a frightening command. She couldn't lose him; she'd just found him again.

Mordin made it over to them, gently moving Shepard aside as he went to examine the fallen turian. She stood up and out of the way, frantic on what to do. She realized they needed to get back to the Normandy and Dr. Chakwas. She pushed in the comm on her earpiece, "Joker I need you in here now! We need an emergency evac and Dr. Chakwas on board the shuttle!"

"Aye aye Commander," Joker was deadly curious as to what was going on, but knew he'd find out as soon as the shuttle returned with said injured party.

Mordin had managed to slow the bleeding just as the shuttle arrived. Shepard followed closely behind as Mordin and Zaeed carried Garrus up and into the shuttle. She'd removed her helmet, which was now clutched tightly in her fist as her eyes fell to the blood splattering all over the ground behind the three of them. Despite Mordin's success at stopping Garrus from bleeding to death on the spot, so much of it ran down Mordin and Zaeed's sides, down their legs and to the ground.

Dr. Chakwas was aboard and began working on Garrus immediately. She ordered Mordin to do this and that to assist her. Emmalene flinched at Zaeed's hand on her shoulder. He gave her a stern but empathetic look.

"I'm sure he'll be alright, Shepard," he assured her with a gruff effort at comfort, but they both knew he didn't logically think it very probable. Shepard appreciated it, nonetheless.

She nodded, her eyes returning to the operation going on in front of her. She took in the site of his injuries clearly now. It looked as if the lower right half of his face was completely missing. Her knuckles went white as she clenched her helmet and hoped to God, Goddess, to the Spirits, to whatever held imminent power in the universe to let her keep her friend.

"Commander, how's it going down there?" Joker's voice rang out in her comm. It shook her from her worry for a moment and she turned away to speak to him without the sight of Garrus possibly dying in front of her.

"Garrus was hit pretty bad. Dr. Chakwas and Mordin are working on him now."

"Garrus? Wait, _what?_**" **Joker stammered.

Emmalene realized no one on the Normandy knew that Archangel had actually been Garrus. No one on board _knew_Garrus, but they knew of him from the Battle of the Citadel. Joker knew him of course, and knew that Emmalene and Garrus had a past as close friends and as hero's of the galaxy. She shook herself from the current situation and put Commander Shepard of the Normandy into her voice. "Archangel is Garrus. He was with a vigilante squad, taking down the merc's and their operations here on Omega."

"Holy shit," Joker snuffed in amusement.

"We were trying to get out and back to the ship when a Blue Suns' gunship took him down. Dr. Chakwas and Mordin are working on him right now. We should be docking with you-" she was about to say any second just as she felt the shuttle thump it's landing in the shuttle bay, "we're here. I'll brief everyone once we get Garrus to Med Bay."

"Got it Commander," Joker replied dutifully.

The shuttle opened to crew members awaiting their arrival to help with the wounded. Emmalene watched as Garrus was carried out on a stretcher. Zaeed gave her one more reassuring glance as he passed her and exited the shuttle. She followed him, hurrying to catch up to the crew, Dr's and Garrus.

She stood off in the corner of the elevator and watched on. It was strange not being in control of what was happening. She was always the one in control: giving orders to her crew, dictating how an operation should be executed, getting people to safety. It was what she did. But now, there was nothing she could do but wait.

The elevator let out on the crew deck. The Dr's and crew piled out of the elevator with Garrus, but Shepard remained in the corner as the doors closed. She didn't move. She couldn't understand the worry that had so potently taken over her body. She'd seen friends fall in battle before. Why couldn't she follow, then? What was she so scared of?

"Commander? How's he doing?" Joker's voice in her earpiece startled her.

She pushed the reply button and quickly collected herself. "He's going into surgery."

"He'll pull through, Commander. It's Garrus."

Emmalene smiled a small smile at the confidence in Joker's voice. "Yeah."

* * *

Emmalene tried to go about her regular commander duties while Garrus was in surgery. She changed into her commander blues and started her report to the Illusive Man on Archangel. When she got to the part where she began explaining how Garrus was injured, she couldn't focus and decided to go down to the med bay to see how everything was going. No one had called her with an update in almost an hour. Her worry tightened her throat and all the muscles in her body.

"Commander," Jacob greeted her as she rounded the elevator. It looked like he was just leaving the med bay.

"Jacob?" she asked his name as they met one another halfway.

"I was just coming to update you. Garrus is stable. They're working on a skin graft for the injury to his face."

"Is he awake?" she asked with a mild urgency.

"Not yet. Mordin asked me to let you know how he was. Garrus Vakarian, right? He helped you fight Saren and the Geth?"

Emmalene nodded as her eyes wandered around the soldier to the med bay doors. "That would be him."

"It'll be an honor to meet him," Jacob's admiration was also an attempt at setting the commander at ease. He could see her concern ran deep for her friend.

"Thanks Jacob," she smiled a small smile.

"You up for a de-brief?"

She sighed. She wasn't, but it needed to happen sooner or later. After all, she wanted to let everyone know Archangel had turned out to be Garrus, her old partner in crime. She also wanted to lay down the law regarding her turian friend: If she heard anything at all about him being mistreated because he was a Turian, they would have her to contend with: without question. She would also reiterate that if it were the other way around, she would go about resolving the issue with the same fervor. No one was to discriminate against one's race on the Normandy. No one.

"Let's get this over with. Will you gather everyone in the conference room Jacob?"

"Of course, Commander," he saluted her before heading off to do as she asked.

Emmalene stood for a few moments longer, looking again at the med bay doors. It felt like torture turning away from where she knew Garrus was undergoing surgery without checking in to see how it was going. But she trusted Dr. Chakwas and Mordin to keep him alive, and turned to meet her crew for the de-brief down in the comm room.

* * *

"Commander, I know Garrus took a pretty good hit back on Omega. I just wanted-" Jacob was interrupted by the comm room door opening to reveal a certain turian sharp-shooter.

Emmalene couldn't hide her grin, "Garrus!"

"Heh, you're one tough SOB," Jacob chuckled.

Garrus walked into the room and gently touched at the patch that covered the injured side of his face. "No one would give me a mirror. How bad is it?" he looked to Emmalene.

She crossed her arms over her chest and smiled. "Hell, Garrus. You were always ugly. Just slap some face paint on there and you should be good to go." His laugh filled her heart with a joy she'd been hoping to feel since the moment she watched him gunned down by the gunship.

"Oh, damn it," he laughed but paused as the pain in his face seared. "Don't make me laugh, my face is barely hanging on as it is."

Jacob looked to the Commander, then Garrus, saluting them both and taking his leave of the comm room so they could catch up. Emmalene walked over to Garrus and looked him over. "Looks like you're going to live, yeah?" she asked as she looked up into his beady blue eyes.

"I guess so," he smiled down at the worry on her face. His smile faded as his concern for her floated to the surface of his thoughts. "I'm not so much worried about me, though. Cerberus, Shepard? Are you sure you can trust them? You remember all the sick experiments they were doing?"

"Yeah," she shrugged as she thought a moment on his question. "It's a long story. But I'm glad you're here. I need someone I can trust on this ship."

He thought on the rumors about how she had died. But she was here, so had she really died? Did Cerberus capture her and keep her captive these past two years? His questions spun dizzily in his mind, making him want to sit down with the gravity of it all; of her being there in front of him again.

"You okay?" she asked, reaching out and taking his arm gently, "you look a little woozy?"

"I'm fine," he assured her and composed himself. "And you can always trust me, Shepard."

Emmalene knew she could, but his reassurance of it made her feel good. "I know there's a lot of explaining to do," she offered to talk about it.

"I," he began, pausing as he thought about what exactly there was to explain. The look on her face, though, as she stood there, ready to tell him whatever he needed to know despite how hard that might actually be for her; he didn't want to push her. "Whenever you're ready, Shepard. I know you wouldn't be here if there wasn't a damn good reason to be."

Her smile was sweet and warmed his heart. "Thanks, Garrus." He nodded to her. "So, you okay with this? Joining up with Cerberus?"

"I'm okay with joining _you_," he emphasized that it was her he trusted.

Again, his words made her so happy inside. "These colonies that are being taken, it's all humans."

"Yeah, I got the jist of it from Dr. Solis when I woke up from surgery. Be it I had a hard time keeping up with what he was saying half of the time," the two chuckled. "I don't really know anything about the Collector's. Do you?"

She shook her head. "Not really. We know they're a nomadic race, or something like that. They're like, black market mad scientists. It's bizarre seeing them, out here in the Terminus Systems. And taking _entire_colonies..."

"And Cerberus has leads as to why they're doing this?"

Emmalene turned on him to lay her palms flat on the conference table and lean forward on them. "Cerberus was able to get us onto Freedom's Progress before the Alliance showed up. They're definitely taking humans alive, in some kind of stasis. But we still don't know what for."

"If they're abducting humans in such mass quantities, it can't be for anything less than horrible, I'd assume," he said bleakly.

"Exactly," she agreed. They stood there for a moment before she turned to face him. "I'll send you all the files we have, so you can read up on what we know so far. I'd also like your take on things. I've kind of been in my own head about all of this," she admitted.

He could hear the loneliness and stress in her voice. He nodded. "You got it, Shepard. Well, I'll go try and make myself useful. You can find me down in the main battery if you need me later." He gave her one last friendly smile before turning and leaving the comm room.


	2. Chapter 2

_So this is the first part/segment I've completed. I have quite a few more, but thought I'd put this up to see how peeps like it. I'll keep working on the other pieces and integrate them as I go along._

_This segment starts in ME2. I will try not to go all over the place crazy with timeline, but this was the first thing that came to mind that I had wanted to depict. I hope you guys enjoy this small beginning :)_

* * *

"EDI?" Garrus entered his lock code on the main battery log, "could you patch me through to the Commander?"

"She is currently unavailable, Garrus."

"Ah. And I assume you would rather not tell me exactly where she is, right?" Garrus smiled to himself. He knew EDI respected Emmalene's privacy, never listening in on her conversations or giving away her current status to the crew unless it was an emergency.

"Unfortunately not, Garrus."

"A clue, perhaps?" he exited the main battery and tested EDI for at least an idea of where to start.

It was quiet for a moment before EDI replied. "Perhaps a visit down to the engineering level would be of interest to you."

"Heh. Thanks EDI. I just want to check in on her before we hit the Citadel."

"Of course."

He took the elevator down to engineering. He walked to the window over-looking the shuttle bay to see a few crew members mulling about their usual duties. Looking to his right, then left, he decided to check the cargo bay first for the elusive commander. He entered the unlock code and smiled.

"I found you," the cargo bay doors whooshed open to reveal her sitting on the floor, leaned up against a crate of thermal clips. She was gazing out of the cargo bay window. He wondered whose idea it was to put a window down in the cargo bay as he walked in, the doors sliding closed behind him.

Emma smiled up at him, "looking for me?"

"It's rare for the Commander of her own ship to go MIA. Especially when we're 45 minutes from the Citadel and probably has a billion reports to write," he took a seat next to her, lacing his talons together in his lap, "everything alright, Shepard?"

"I... I just needed the quiet before the storm, you know?" she looked back out of the window, "I'm not looking forward to flying all the way to the Council just to have them throw everything back in my face. _Again_," she scratched her cheek at the agitation she felt.

Garrus nodded. "The stuffy bastards might as well glue giant "Reapers Welcome" signs to the ends of each ward."

Emma snuffed a laugh. She rest her head back against the crate and closed her eyes, "politics."

"Anything I can do to help?" he offered. He could see and feel her stress and was concerned how well she was really handling it all.

"Hm. You want to go and defeat the entire Reaper army for me?" she gave him a mischievous smirk.

He chortled, "ha, I think I'll leave that one up to you. Sorry Shepard."

"Thank you, very much," she rolled her head to the side with a smile and sigh, "well you're still invited to come, regardless."

"Yeah thanks," he smirked. The tired look in her eyes took the smile from his face. "Really, though. How are you doing?" Her head lolled over to meet his gaze. She could see he was truly concerned and felt a pang of guilt at the compassion on his face. She was indeed very worried about what they were going to do to stop the Reapers, but she felt she was at least going in the right direction, solution-wise.

"I'm sorry Garrus. I don't mean to let things get to me so much." His laugh surprised her. "What's funny?"

He crossed his arms under his chest, "I've never met anyone like you, that could handle the pressure and intensity of missions and assignments like the ones we've had. You have a full crew of people of all walks of life following you just because you asked them to. It's pretty remarkable.

"But you are human, as the saying goes. You're still a person. It's okay for you to_ feel_," he iterated to her. "You're not alone, Shepard." His words hit harder than expected. She felt herself begin to grin as she looked back at him sitting next to her on the floor of the cargo hold. "What?" he asked at the look.

"Thank you for looking for me down here. I, really trust you, you know? I'm really glad that it was you I found there on Omega. I'm really glad that you're... you."

Garrus almost flubbed words aloud at his surprise. He sighed with relief to be able to say, "I feel the same. When I finally caught you in my scope after you'd reached the bridge," he looked away as he recalled Omega, his arms laying lax in his lap, "it was like waking up from a nightmare I'd been trapped in for two years."

"Two years," she said quietly. "I still can't believe it sometimes."

"Neither can I," he confessed. His words were inflicted with more sadness than he'd meant them to be, but he couldn't deny how lost and alone he'd felt. "It wasn't right without you."

They sat there, side by side. Quiet. Contemplating. Neither could bring themselves to speak, or even move from where they sat.

She could feel the nervous tension growing around them. Garrus' voice rang out in her head,_ "it was like waking up from a nightmare I'd been trapped in for 2 years..."_ She could see Joker perfectly in her mind as she lowered him into the evac pod. A blast from the Collector ship shook her grip and sent her flying back and away from Joker, from the evac pod. She couldn't hear him, but the look on his face as the pod doors closed expressed that he would have traded places with her if he could. Relief washed over her when she'd hit the 'eject' button. He would be safe. Most of the crew had made it out safely. One final blast from the Collector's sent her hard into the corner of a wall, and then everything went quiet. She opened her eyes to see the fiery pieces of the Normandy, her ship, her home for the past year of her life, aimlessly floating amidst space. Just as she was, ejected from the reality she had known only moments before.

That was when she began to choke. That was when the heat of Alchera's atmosphere began melting the material and metal of her spacesuit... and then suddenly there was Miranda, fretting over the dose of sedative to put her back to sleep. The weight of realizing that what had felt like seconds to her turning out to be two years of time was suddenly insurmountably heavy in her chest. It was unbelievable to her.

"Shepard?" Garrus' voice startled her from her thoughts. He reached up just in time to catch a tear that rolled down her cheek.

"I dunno," she began. "I just remember Joker's face and the Collector ship," her voice quivered, "and all I could feel was the heat and the pain-"

"Hey," he turned her face up to his. Garrus didn't really know what to do. Her grief was so sudden. He wanted to comfort her but didn't know what he could do besides stop her from re-living the memory of dying. She hadn't talked about what had happened to her after the Normandy went down; about how she had died. From the look of her, it seemed as if she hadn't told anyone about it. He tried to comfort her by placing a hand on her shoulder.

She reached up and wiped away the tears on her cheeks, "I haven't really processed it all, you know?" the frustration in her grew as she continued, "I just, woke up to find out everyone I knew was gone, and that human colonies were being abducted. Then I had Miranda explaining my new implants and cybernetics and Jacob telling me about the Alliance and how they were doing nothing about the Reapers," Garrus listened on, Emma pausing briefly as she was over-taken by her thoughts.

"There were 20 men and women that didn't make it off of the Normandy. 20 people whose families depended on me to keep them alive, and I didn't. How am I supposed to just show up again? Why didn't Cerberus collect the remains of those fallen soldiers and give them another chance? Why was it just me?" Her voice broke as she looked away from Garrus and held the back of her hand to her mouth, "what right do I have to still be alive Garrus?"

"Shepard," he turned to face her and took her arm firmly in his talons, "it's not your fault those soldiers died. Blame the Collectors. Those soldiers knew what the mission was, Shepard. No one blames you."

"It doesn't matter if they do or don't. There are so many lives on the line, Garrus. The _entire universe_ could be lost to the Reapers, and no one is doing anything about it. Except for us. Cerberus is my boss, and as much as I want to take a thanix cannon to this ship and the Illusive Man's intelligence and all of his bullshit_ I don't_, because he is the only one willing to recognize what's really at stake; what's going to happen to all of us if we don't do something now."

He didn't know what to say as she sobbed a few times before pulling herself together. It was heartbreaking to hear what she was saying to him; her confession of guilt felt heavy in his gut. He couldn't imagine how it must have felt to her.

"God. I'm a fucking mess," the words came with a sad smile and laugh.

"You came down here because you knew this was eating away at you, Shepard. This is your time to process what's happened to you, what's happening to you."

"I suppose," she unpurposely side-swept his efforts at comfort as she sniffled and tried to collect herself. "I'm not like this, I don't just lose it out of nowhere."

"I take it you also don't die on a regular basis either?" he tried once more to put her ordeal in front of her to see. The sad look in her eyes told him she was listening. "You died, Shepard. I can't say I know what that's like. But I can imagine that it must have been pretty fucked up. Enough to make someone break down a bit, in the least."

She sighed, letting her heavy heart finally take in his comforts. "It's not how I would have liked to have spent the last two years."

"Heh," Garrus smiled.

He watched her as she wiped her face and cleared her throat. She seemed to drift into thought a moment before looking to him and asking, "have you heard from anyone? Liara? Kaiden, or Wrex?"

"No," he shook his head. "I could assume Kaiden is still with the Alliance? Liara left for Thessia, or somewhere. I can't recall exactly. I haven't heard from Wrex."

"Kaiden is still with the Alliance," she confirmed it, as that was one thing she was certain of. "I don't know about anyone else besides Tali. I saw her on Freedom's Progress. I've sent messages to the addresses the Illusive Man gave me, despite the dossier's he's forced upon me with the ultimatum that the crew I had is 'unavailable'. I haven't gotten any replies."

"I'm sure if they knew that Cerberus had brought you back they'd be the ones trying to get in contact with you."

"Maybe. I'm sure as hell thankful I found you. I sent you a few messages, too. But, obviously, you were busy," she smiled, teasing him.

Garrus shrugged, "you've always been there for me right when I've needed you, with or without me knowing about it. It's cute how fate lets you sort of, stalk me, I suppose."

"Ha!" she elbowed him in his armored side as she took one last deep breath of clarity, "watch it Vakarian."

He chuckled as he watched her stand up and shake herself out. It really was amazing that she was there, in the same room with him. He could still see fresh scarring on the side of her neck and near the bottom of her ear and jaw line. His eyes moved to the implant on the back of her neck. In the reports he was allowed access to he'd read about some of the upgrades she'd received upon being reconstructed.

"Is that an L5?" he pointed up at it as he asked.

Her hand went instinctively to it, "yeah. They 'upgraded' me from the L3's. Miranda told me the re-wire was very precise, since, well," Shepard shrugged as she looked down at Garrus, "my spinal column and brain stem were exposed when they got my gear off." She held out a hand to help him up.

"Holy hell Shepard," he took it and let her pull him up. She was noticeably stronger, he barely used any of his own strength to get to his feet.

"Right?" she snuffed, a small smile on her face but Garrus could see it upset her to imagine what that must have looked like. "Well at least my biotics can crush a small car. Or transport shuttle."

"Wouldn't your mind explode from massing up that much energy?" he followed her with his eyes before actually following her out of the cargo bay.

"You'd think?" she agreed, "but on Freedom's Progress, the first human colony mission," she waved her hand as she went on to explain, "the security mech, the YMIR, it just... collapsed with a warp blast. Just," she folded her hands inward towards one another to signify something folding in on itself. "It was insane."

"Well I'll make sure not to piss you off. Not that I was willing to ever to test you anyways," he jested.

Emmalene chuckled at him as they both walked to the elevator. She paused in front of it, Garrus stopping in front of her. "Thank you, Garrus. For coming to find me. You're the best person I know," she scratched her cheek as her smiled went sheepish.

He tilted his head and smiled down at her. "I know, Commander."


End file.
